Alien Senses
by Aiatalay
Summary: Master Chief and the Arbiter learn what it truly is to be one's own enemy from the inside out.


**Alien Senses**  
**based on the idea raised in Switched, by Pink Skittles**

**Master Chief/Arbiter slash is ahead, somewhere! If I can figure out the ending to this story. **

Master Chief and the Arbiter were not friends. They were allies. Their relationship was that between two people who have the choice between working together and annihilation. Nothing more.

Tank shot is loud. The force to launch a shell at the speed Scorpions shoot them is enough to force the heavy, several-ton vehicle, back a bit. Enough to warrant engaging the brakes before each shot. But if tank shot is loud, alien shot is high impact. The Scorpion shell is only a fraction of the size of the plasma shot from a Wraith mortar. If you're missed by a Scorpion shell, it's your lucky day. If you're missed by a Wraith plasma mortar, you're still going flying.

"Holy hell, did you see that?"

"It landed right on them!"

"Fuck, both of them?"

"Yeah."

* * *

When the Arbiter managed to awaken, he was looking up. Falling into darkness, and then a flash of yellow light, which faded to the dull glow of day. He felt, rather than heard, a large object shake loose from a precarious position above him, but its landing ended his brief revival.

Master Chief came to slowly. He felt as if he'd been ripped out of his skin and put back covered in salt. Floating in a haze of semi-consciousness, he noticed that he was actually floating in real life too. Something was supporting him in the air, but a deep rumbling laugh pained his ears, and he knew no more.

"I think he's waking up," Arbiter heard a voice from somewhere above him. It sounded like a female human, and he was reasonably certain he had heard it before. Nonetheless, he swore in his own language when the full body pain hit and he opened his eyes, to see bright, horrible, human 'incandescent' bulb light. It made his eyes hurt and he shut them, and managed to drag his left hand over his face for good measure.

It felt... off.

"What did he say? I didn't catch that..." a human male, from somewhere to the left was saying. The Arbiter turned his head and cracked his eyes open again, this time he wasn't facing the light. He could see the female officer called Keyes and the large, dark-skinned male officer. Sergeant, or Johnson, he was called most often.

He was about to get up, and ask what they were doing in the Sangheili medical bay when one of the human medical personnel came over to him. She shined a light in his eyes (were they purposely trying to blind him with all these lights?) and then she emptied a sharp tube with a depressor into his arm.

His pale, slightly pink arm.

* * *

Master Chief woke up, and then promptly tried to go back to sleep. He had made the mistake of opening his eyes the second he regained consciousness and he could see a Covenant Elite body beneath him where his own human flesh should be, so he knew he was having a strange dream. Ergo, he was in the medical bay, and they'd given him morphine. Therefore, sleep time. Nothing would get done while he was on morphine.

However, he was aware of far too much pain for it to be a drug dream. He sighed. It came out as a low groan in a somewhat familiar deep baritone. Master Chief surmised that he was on a different, somewhat less effective but much more hallucinogenic painkiller. Although, it seemed like there were a lot of Elites around. Maybe the drugs were causing him to see other people as Elites as well? It was as likely as not.

He raised one of the four-fingered hands to his face, and flexed it slightly. It was very large, compared to a human hand. He experimented with making a fist and releasing it. After this display of mental cognition, one of the Elites came over to him.

Chief looked up at the arrival, it was Arbiter's silver-armored friend. He couldn't remember what Arbiter called him, though. All the humans just called Arbiter's people the Elites, unless they were referring to a specific one. Usually someone would tell him where to go, and he'd kill all of them to make sure he'd gotten the objective. He was beginning to think that perhaps that hadn't been the best tactic, now that there were alliances between the humans and the Elites. He ought to learn some of the names of the officers or something.

The Separatist medic halted the silver-armored Elite, and came over to Chief. His face moved in close. He moved an alien device, most likely a scanner, over his body, and made a noise of exasperation. He then said something in their foreign language, and then used a different medical device on him. Master Chief didn't get a good look at it, but it caused him to black out.

* * *

It was night when the Arbiter woke again. He dimly registered feeling a lot better than the last time he woke, but thinking of that caused him to sit bolt upright. He looked over himself, shocked and dismayed. Was he dreaming? Why was he in... a human body? Much less, one he'd never seen before. He had no idea that the skin of humans could run this pale, it seemed vaguely unnatural.

He couldn't look at it. He stared at various other things around the medical bay, from a large pile of first aid kits to the beeping monitor next to him. It had a warning on it, the patient's heart rate had skyrocketed. He was confused, was that the pounding in his ears? One of the night personnel heard the warning, or had it appear on their monitor. They came over and gently pushed him onto his back. It was a flatter experience than he was used to.

"John? It's okay, we have you in the medical bay. You've been out for a day and a half, we put you on opiates because Sergeant Johnson said you needed rest," it was a different female from earlier, both the Keyes female and the other medic. He struggled to control his breathing, it was all very wrong.

"What happened to me?" he wondered aloud, in the human's tongue. Maybe the medic knew why he was in this situation.

"You and the Arbiter, you took a pretty bad hit from what I heard. It looks like you'd been taking out an anti-aircraft Wraith, but you'd been close enough to a building that when a second Wraith saw you, it shot at you and a couple tons of concrete buried both of you. Then the Wraith next to you exploded, and most of that landed on you as well. It's a miracle you're still alive, or a testament to the craftsmanship of Spartan armor. Something, anyway," her voice was tinged with an accent similar to the Sergeant Johnson's. Actually, she seemed to have the same type of warm brown skin as the Sergeant, too.

The Arbiter then grasped the meaning behind her words. The huge block of concrete, he'd seen it, and then it'd been gone. He struggled to remember, but there was only a flash of orange. And then- the craftsmanship of Spartan armor? Suddenly, the Arbiter realized who's body he was in. The Demon's.

There was a rush of dizziness, and his insides seemed to rebel, an involuntary roll of muscles through his torso left him with a bad taste in his mouth, and the medic lost no time putting a container in front of his face.

"Do it here, otherwise you'll be sleeping in it," she drawled.

He didn't know what 'it' was, but the second roll cleared that up for him. The human body was evacuating itself of some sort of acidic substance, and what may have been food at one point. He dimly registered that this was somewhat strange, from what he'd read on the files they'd traded, the humans evacuated themselves through a different opening than the one in their face, like the Sangheili.  
Perhaps the file was wrong?

"Rinse and spit," the medic said, and then handed him a cup. The Arbiter took it, and managed to pour a clear liquid, water, into the unfamiliar mouth. He let it fall out into the medic's container.

"Looks like you've got yourself a fever, too," the medic was saying, as she inspected the machine next to him, "That and the trauma probably caused the vomiting."

The Arbiter shivered, feeling weak after the evacuation. There was a cold feeling to the air, and the medic pulled the blanket up around him. He had just enough sense left to ask a question.

"Where is the Sp- I mean, the Arbiter?" he inquired, nearly slipping. It seemed that he himself was the Spartan.

"He'll be over in the alien's half of the medical bay, but if you want I could ask them to move him closer," the medic said. He wanted to thank her, but now he was feeling too tired, and he was warming under the fabric. He could only nod and fall asleep.

John woke to the feeling of the wheelie cot moving beneath him. An Elite medic was pushing it to the edge of the area where all the other aliens had their medical bay. Nearby, he saw something very distressing. Another medic was pushing his body on another wheelie cot. Glancing down at himself, he saw that he was in the Arbiter's body.

Unfortunately, he was beginning to think that this couldn't be neatly blamed on drugs. Then, the human medic noticed he was awake.

"Hello, Arbiter, sorry we woke you, but Master Chief here woke up about a half hour ago, and was looking for you. He passed out right after though, he'd been sick all over," she said. He looked at his body. They hadn't covered it, so it was still alive, and the monitor screen was visible from where he was sitting. The heart rate and temperature, anyway. Both looked a little high, but just so long as the machine was happy, Master Chief was happy.

He nodded, and put his head back down. He'd slept in his armor plenty of times, but these weird body feelings and Elite armor were not what he was used to. He'd tried peeling off some armor from an Elite once, because the Humans wanted to know what kind of technology there was, but had discovered that the armor was permanently attached. However, it felt like the Arbiter's armor was removable. It shifted independently of him if he sucked in his middle, anyway, but it hurt to do that.

The Elite's medic ran the scanner thing over him again, and nodded. Suddenly, one of the other Elites groaned and the medics went over to see to him.

Master Chief looked back over at his body. He looked like shit. But, he looked better than the thought he would look after jumping on top of the Arbiter when he heard the Wraith mortar make contact. Something heavy had fallen on them, that much he knew. There was the hint of purple on the back of his neck, he'd managed to get bruised through the armor.

He tried sitting up, to look over at himself better. The muscles in his new body didn't like moving, but he persisted in stretching them. He had the idea to try and take a few steps, despite the bone-tiredness he felt. He decided not to, if he fell, the medic would come back and he had a feeling that he wouldn't be able to communicate with him in the Elites' language.

After shifting himself onto his side, he felt better. There was less noticeable difference between laying on his side as a human like he was used to and laying on his side as an Elite. He ended up falling asleep this way.

When he woke again, it was because breakfast rations were being passed out. John was dismayed to realize that he was still in the Arbiter's body. And, he had no idea how to eat like this.

He surreptitiously watched a different Elite do it, and copied his actions. The alien food wasn't bad, as far as military rations went. Having lived on military rations most of his life, he had to admit that he'd had worse.

He looked over to where his body was laying, and found 'himself' still asleep. A human medic prodded him awake, though, and gave him some breakfast food. He looked better, the nasty purple bruise having already faded to green. John felt irrationally proud of his body's fast healing.

He looked confused when presented with the food. The medic, luckily, didn't notice and continued on with her morning rounds. He looked over at John, and looked surprised to find John watching him. John checked that no one else was watching them, and mimed eating.

He got it after a few tries. About as fast as John did for the alien eating.

* * *

The Arbiter finished his Earth meal. The humans did not have nice mandibles that help them pick up their food and process it, their mandibles were on their hands. Sort of. He found that instead of ripping their food with their mouths, they used small tools to make it small enough to place inside their mouth, where it was further chewed and processed.

The Sergeant Johnson wandered over, sucking on his mouth flame. The Arbiter hadn't been very close, physically, to him before, and now that he was leaning over the bed, he realized that the smoke made his human lungs itch. He coughed.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty! Glad to see your raggedy ass alive. That must have been around thirteen tons of concrete you had on you, why in Sam Hell were you on top of the Arbiter?"

He blinked. That must have been what the flash of orange was- the Spartan's visor.

"I'm... not sure why," he said slowly, reaching up to feel the back of his head. It was tender, and hurt slightly to touch, but it got the message across.

"You got knocked on the head, didn't you," the man stated.

The Arbiter nodded, feeling awkward under the knowing gaze.

"You know that armor ain't cheap. You managed to break it all over. The helmet was in an especially sorry state. What if someday you find a brick that breaks you? Where's my platoon gonna be then?"

The Arbiter was quiet. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to react to the information that the Spartan saved him- thirteen tons of concrete would have killed him. Somehow, both of them had survived.

"Well, you're lucky that we still have other tin cans. We'll get it shipped out later today if you aren't paralyzed from extreme brick death match. Idiot," the Sergeant saluted him, and walked away.

The Arbiter looked over at his body. He could see a huge dent in the chest piece of his armor now, which looked like a perfect negative of the Spartan's armor. Proof of his... action.

He carefully slid his body to the side, and let his legs dangle over the side of the cot, so that he could better face 'himself'. Here he could see that his feet were bare. It was a strange sight, five toes on a flatter surface. Usually humans kept them covered, so this was his first sight of an uncovered human foot. They seemed sensitive, from the way he dragged them over the sheet.

* * *

Seeing Johnson interact with himself was, objectively, kind of amusing. He watched himself slide over to face him, and he copied the movement. His feet touched the floor, and it was, he realized, only what would be roughly the front half of the human foot that actually hit the floor

He tried to remember what that was called. Biology class had been decades ago, but he knew that cats and other things like that had the same adaptation. It was faster, but less suited for load-bearing. He looked at the other John, who was wiggling his toes.

Their eyes met. In school, he'd been told his eyes were striking, but he hadn't believed them. Now, looking through another's eyes, he had to admit that that particular shade of brown was intense, almost burning.

From the Arbiter's perspective, he could see himself looking at him with a curious, blank stare. It seemed familiar, and then he realized that he had seen the same sort of blank curiosity radiating off of the Spartan on multiple occasions.

"Spartan?" he asked lowly, looking for any eavesdroppers.

"Arbiter?" John asked just as quietly.

There was a pause, while they digested the confirmation of having switched their bodies.

"You have a dent in your armor," the Arbiter said, slightly louder. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

John looked down at himself. He did have a dent there. It looked like the front of his armor, and he felt slightly guilty and oddly pleased for some reason. He'd made a mark on the legendary Arbiter. He touched it, and regretted doing so. There was obviously a bruise under there, and now he was off whatever alien medicine that he'd been given, so he could feel it.

"Is it... repairable?" he asked, knowing how the armor was usually attached.

"Usually, a dent that big means that the wearer is dead. But the armor of the Arbiter comes off. It is likely that it can be repaired, though the mark will never be removed," the Arbiter said, trying not to be overheard.

"Maybe we should look into that," Master Chief stated. It would get them up and doing something. And if he could take the human Arbiter with him, then he would have a convenient shield against Elites trying to talk to him in Alienese.

In lieu of a spoken response, the Arbiter carefully slid himself off the bed, trying to balance on human feet. It was a much sturdier way of doing things, from the side. The front-to-back balancing was somewhat lacking, until he stood straight up. This caused all the weight to be centered on the lower spine and split evenly between his feet. Tentatively, he took a few steps.

The human feet managed to compact what was most of the lower half of the Sangheili leg into one small appendage. He saw humans walking put the heel portion of the foot on the ground first, and this was easier to balance. However, he found that still putting the front half of the foot first felt more natural. He saw a medic run past as a patient's monitor started screaming.

He was running on the front half of his foot. Multi-use, then. The larger surface area of the foot was good for carrying things, but when speed was required an extra boost could be gained by only using the front half.

Glancing back over at the Sangheili Spartan, he saw that while he'd been working this out, his counterpart had gotten up, and was swaying slightly, though in a purposeful manner. The way the Sangheili walk was much more based on swinging their weight around, making them very fast. It was kind of difficult to hold large weights and carry them long distances, the way humans were so fond of, though.

It required standing up completely straight, and usually a different way of balancing.

However, the Arbiter's suspicions about the sensitivity of human feet were now confirmed. The cold floor had specks of dirt all over, and he could almost count them without looking. He was going to need some foot coverings before he accidentally stepped on something sharp.

* * *

They managed to get a spare Marine's uniform off of the medics, under the condition that they brought it back when they had the Spartan's armor. Master Chief leaned against the wall near the medic's station, staring out over the medical bay, while quietly walking the Arbiter through the process of lacing up boots.

The Arbiter had difficulties managing two extra digits on each hand.

* * *

They arrived at the entrance to the maintenance area the Elites had set up, for fixing their ships, weapons, and armor. The Elites standing guard over the area were initially suspicious over letting the human Arbiter into the area.

"This is the Demon. He will allow me to view the inner workings of his armor if I am to allow him to see mine," Master Chief said, trying to imitate the Arbiter's manner of speech.

It seemed to work, as the guards immediately became less disrespectful of what looked like an ordinary Marine, if a bit pale, unusually tall, and carrying most of his uniform.

However, they were eventually led through by a technician who loudly shouted about the condition of the Arbiter's armor. By the way the actual Arbiter, in Master Chief's body, turned his head and coughed, John could guess that most of the words not in English were rather belligerent.

John let out a low growl, loving the way the other Elites quailed slightly at the sound.

"If it were not for the Spartan transferring the weight from the rubble onto my armor, I would not even be here," he said. The Elite's technician shifted uncomfortably, then led him over to a workbench. There, he started fiddling with the back of his helmet. It seemed to be a long moment before he was able to undo whatever was holding it on, and slide it off.

There aren't any words for that sensation, really. Humans don't have mandible guards. Next, the technician moved onto the sides of the cuirass, the most damaged piece. His fingers kept slipping, and eventually he was still only halfway through, and swearing under his breath.

The Arbiter watched his counterpart try desperately not to wiggle away from the technician's skilled fingers. Although, he noticed that the small clasps on the armor weren't being very cooperative. The armor was styled after Forerunner artifacts, more decorative. And it had really only been intended to be used once. He glanced down at his own hands.

They seemed large compared to the other humans', but they would be small compared to the Sangheili's. He looked at the small clasps with a calculating eye. Possibly even the perfect size.

He moved closer to the technician, saying "Perhaps I could be of some assistance?"

The technician looked him over, focusing especially on his hands. He nodded, and a different technician nearby objected.

"But Arbiter, your armor-"

"Was given to him by the Prophets to atone him for the disgraces I gave him. He has shared this with me before."

"Does it not strike you as inappropriate?" the other technician asked incredulously, to which the first technician replied, "Let him assist. The armor was not intended to come off a live corpse, and we have no Unggoy with their small fingers."

As he worked the small clasps open, it occurred to the Arbiter that the human fingers were, in fact, perfectly sized for the job. Interesting.

It was quick work to remove the damaged plates after that. It ended up that he had to take off the entire set, because the technicians decided it would be best to repair all of it at once than risk having a small defect become a major repair job later.

However, in order to ensure that none of the repairs would cause the armor to be incompatible with their other parts, the Arbiter was soon faced with the most awkward task he'd ever had.  
To take off the harness that all the plates were attached to, he would actually have to touch... himself. And not only that, but he would be revealing the Mark of Shame. Not that it was so shameful any longer, but it was still a scar he preferred to ignore on most occasions.

Then there was the other scars, for that matter. Scars that ranged from the bullet marks in his side to that ancient training accident. Scars that would betray loss of blood from causes not in war. He fought to keep his human face impassive, and probably failed. The Spartan sensed his discomfort, and looked away, even as a few other Sangheili took in small gasps.

The harness was folded on the bench, and everyone could see a history of every mistake the Arbiter had ever made carved into his flesh. John, for his part, resisted the urge to touch a few, including a rather complicated mark on his chest.

He did shift so that he was straddling the bench rather than sitting on it, making it harder for gawkers to see the Arbiter's body.

It made him suddenly face to face with a newcomer, the silver-clad Elite.

"Rtas 'Vadum," the technicians bowed as they said the name and stepped back to allow him to speak. The Shipmaster's eyes had clearly been on the multiple discolored patches of hide, betraying the bruises and earlier internal bleeding, but they flicked up to meet John's head on when he spoke.

"Thel. I heard that your armor was in extreme condition. I am glad that your body is not. I have been holding on to this..." his gaze dropped to a leathery object in his hands, then rose back to John's face, "It will be the only thing left of you, when you die, I think, because at this rate you will die in the most spectacular way possible," he said, a wry undertone to his admonishments.

John took it, it was a cloak. He slid it on, and there was a noticeable drop in tension from... Thel. That must be his real name.

"No, it is the Spartan who wants no trace of his existence left after he is gone," he replied to Rtas.

"He is rubbing off on you, then," the Shipmaster chuckled.

They followed the Shipmaster out of the maintenance area, leaving the Arbiter's armor in the capable hands of the technicians.

Soon, a different Elite came up to the Shipmaster, taking his attention and redirecting it to a problem elsewhere.

They were left in the hallway alone, Thel holding his Marine uniform to his chest, because the air was cold even though his fever had broken in the night.

"Your name is Thel?" John asked the Arbiter.

"'Vadam. Thel 'Vadam," Thel replied. He wasn't often referred to by name anymore, not since it had been taken from him. He had it back now that the Sangheili were no longer part of the Covenant. But...

"John."

"What?" He looked over and up at himself.

"My name is John-117."

He remembered the medic calling him John. That must have been why. Suddenly, he realized that the name made the Spartan - John, seem a lot more personable. Less like the legendary Demon that plagued the Covenant, and more like a soldier, like himself. It occurred to him that not many people probably knew the Spartan's real name.

Thel was still lost in his thoughts when it became apparent that John was staring at him.

"What?" he asked, sidling away slightly.

"You. Have five o'clock shadow." Thel didn't know what that was.

"Is that... bad?" he asked, confused. Looking down at himself, he didn't see anything wrong, other than the unnatural paleness, and a lot of yellowing bruises.

"It will make your face itch," John said, trailing a finger along Thel's jaw to prove his point. Thel, for his part, wouldn't be able to describe the sensation to you for any sort of reward. His species being hairless, he had no idea how to react to the little prickly feelings, some of which made their way up and down his spinal column. But the Spartan was right, it was distinctly... itchy.

"So, is there a way to get it off?" he ran a hand over his face, feeling the prickles on his finger tips. He shivered at the odd tickling in his palm and on his face.

"Yes. We will go clean you first," John said, and then he paused.

"What do Elites-"

"Sangheili. We are Sangheili, not Elites."

"-Sangheili, then, do for... bathing?"

Thel paused, about to be insulted, but then realized that at the very least, John had assumed they did bathe. He was asking a legitimate question, considering the situation.

"We are using your human facilities, to avoid depleting our ships' capacity in that area," he said, glad he remained calm. And then suddenly, it occurred to him, the full gravity of the situation.

They were in each other's bodies, and they needed to wash themselves. He only hoped he could divorce his mind from what was happening to him long enough to get it over with. He'd survived having his armor burned off, after all.

* * *

They found a more secluded area of the showers. Although, most of the personnel would have showered in the morning, they'd wasted enough of the day that they had managed to catch the area mostly empty. Thel and John quietly rotated a wall of lockers 90 degrees, blocking both entrances to their section, to ensure it stayed empty.

Then Thel pushed the lockers to the side, trying not to make too much noise, pushed a bench in to the resulting hole, vertically, to ensure that no one would be able to see. Sure, privacy was a luxury in the military, and they were probably going to have to answer to someone if they were caught. On the other hand, they were both going to be naked and teaching each other how to clean their bodies.

Very awkward.

He turned around to find that John had taken off the doarmir cloak he'd received from Rtas. He was lightly touching the Mark of Shame, just above a huge bruise on his chest. Thel felt his breath hitch. He was over by the Spartan's side before he realized he'd moved, his hand on John's over the Mark.

"What is this?" John asked quietly. He'd seen it on a few of the Elit- the Sangheili's armor, but only after they'd separated from the Prophets. It seemed to have some sort of significance.

Thel debated with himself. He didn't know the Spartan well, but... it was risky, but he felt that he wanted to tell him. Let him know what he'd done to Thel.

"It is... my failure," he started, not fully knowing why he was saying this. John's head rose from his gaze at the Mark, to meet Thel's eyes. He knew, at least, of the blow to Thel's pride that this must be.

"Do you remember, when your ship, the Pillar of Autumn, came across the ring?"

John nodded, unsure of where this was going, but rapidly forming several ideas.

"I was leading the Covenant ships pursuing it."

Oh. Shit. John knew him now, Thel was clad in gold back then. He'd stolen one of their ships, too. And, because the Arbiter had been leading the ships, he must have been answering only to the Prophets, who wanted the rings intact.

"I lost one of our flagships, I lost a Prophet's life, I lost the Halo..."

John stayed silent.

"It was your fault," Thel said. He looked up at John, and his eyes were burning, even through the short, quiet exchange. John bowed his head.

"I was just doing my job," he stated. He preferred not to think of his enemies as anything sentient, more often he referred to enemies as targets. Or objectives to be eliminated. If he allowed himself to think of enemies as sentient, then he traveled dangerously close to emotional territory. He didn't like emotions.

"Well, you were very good at it," Thel managed not to yell, although he would love to. Bringing up that particular day, it made him want to pummel the Spartan into small mushes and spoon-feed it to an Unggoy. He did throw his hands up in the air, startling the Spartan, and pace around. It made his back hurt so he put his arms down.

However, the satisfaction he got later when the Sangheili dissolved their Covenant was tempering his thirst for revenge. Plus, if he pummeled _John_ into small mushes _now_, he might never get to go back to his old self.

"What do you think caused this?" he asked suddenly, now thinking on it. John looked surprised by the question.

"I don't know. This is not heard of among humans."

"Nor is it among us. We ought to try and learn more about what may have caused this."

That effectively ended that discussion-for now. The Spartan came over to Thel and placed his hands lightly on Thel's sides. Thel tried to step out of the unexpected contact, but John had got hold of his shirt, and it was pulling tight on his injuries. He went still, to let the sudden pain subside.

Gently, he lifted the shirt off of the Arbiter, revealing rings of tender discoloration around his torso. They were in a regular pattern, and spacing, all the way up to his neck. It must have been from the high pressure nitrogen embolisms that Dr. Halsey had been fond of warning him about. The armor must have been well and truly fucked. But it did its job admirably.

"I think that the damage is less extensive than I thought," the Spartan said, inspecting the wounds, miraculously, no skin was broken. Almost unbelievable, he thought, "But it would have still hurt you to try to get out of the shirt yourself. I think you can get the other clothes, though."

It just barely occurred to Thel to take off the overly complicated footwear first, then the pants, before he tried it. He was still trying to figure out what just happened. Well, a good way to get that answer was to ask.

"Why did you do that?" he inquired. The Spartan turned to face him, it was suddenly obvious that the Sangheili was naked now that he himself was sitting and half undressed.

"I wanted to see what kind of damage I- you- had taken. I was not thinking when I jumped,"  
from the tone of voice John used, Thel could infer that the rashness of the decision was something that he regretted.

Thel understood the motivation now. He could see some extensive damage on his own body, and knew that it had probably been much worse just two days ago. But he was glad for fast healing and topical medication.

He managed off the overly complicated footwear and then the light pants, laying them on top of the shirt next to the rest of the uniform he had gotten from the medic. It all looked far too complicated to be a non-armor-clothing-item.

While he did this, the Spartan busied himself inside one of the larger cubicles. He was messing with a knob that caused water to come out. He went over to the Spartan, to see how it was operated so that he wouldn't have to spend unnecessary time divining the controls.

Surprisingly, the Spartan stepped back, and allowed him to enter. The water felt warm to his skin, and he was slightly worried to find the pink hue returning to the skin as the water drummed over his arms. The other times he'd seen it, it was an indicator that he was very sick.

"What causes your skin to change color?" He hissed nervously, trying futilely to rub the color away.

"Capillaries," was the terse reply, as the Spartan pressed his hand on the soap dispenser.

"What?"

"Capillaries. They are very small blood vessels near the surface of the skin. When they fill with blood, the skin turns pink."

"Oh. It's just that it happened earlier, and your body was ill."

"You had a fever, which is when the body heats up to fight infection. The blood was being pumped near the surface of your skin to let off heat, which caused your temperature to drop. Among other reactions," they traded places so that the Arbiter could get at the soap dispenser easier.

"I see." It made sense now, he must have woken in the night as his fever was ending, and he would have been understandably disoriented.

"I heard that you were sick as well, that's unfortunate," the Spartan was saying. Thel was staring at him, while he ran his soapy fingers through his... hair.

Such an odd sensation. It felt longer than most of the other military males had their hair, but shorter than any of the females by a good percentage. Also, it was soft. Very much unlike the almost sharp and extremely stiff fur of the Jiralhanae, aptly called Brutes by the humans.

John debated with himself whether to comment on the way the Arbiter was confusedly petting his head. He decided not to, hair would be a pretty new experience to him. He decided that it was okay for Thel to touch it, because forbidding him to do so would require him to touch it, and that would require touching Thel. Which he decided to do as little as possible of in the foreseeable future, because it made him feel weird.

Having now washed and rinsed himself, he exited the shower, and got a towel from one of the lockers to dry himself off with. He focused on walking, so that he wouldn't slip on any water.

After he was dry, he put on the cloak that Rtas Vadum had let him use. It was soft and furry on the inside.

Soon enough, the Arbiter finished cleaning himself as well. He was thinking that it was good that they had shared the shower, because it had kept his mind off of the more embarrassing portions of rubbing slippery stuff on their bodies. Of course, the instant John left, his thoughts derailed into uncomfortable territory.

Thel resolutely tried to ignore that part of his mind and finish rinsing off the soap.

He got out of the shower as well, and took the towel that the Spartan had discarded, not really interested in freezing while he found a fresh one. Saves one more for the next person.  
Then he refocused on the pile of clothes.

Carefully, he sifted through it. There were two shirts, one was of lighter material, and the other was gray. He'd seen most of the marines in gray, so he supposed that the gray one went on the outside. Likewise for the pants. And he already knew about the cloth tubules, socks, and the overly complicated footwear.

He decided to put on the pants first. The Spartan was busy rooting around in some of the unlocked, communal lockers for something, and was not paying attention to him. Luckily he managed to figure out the process all on his own. It was not so simple for the shirts, both of which were a pullover design.

Moving his arms up, over his head, and the subsequent tight pull of the fabric before he'd adjusted it irritated his injuries. The second one was easier, because he worked out the mechanics of the action with the first.

* * *

Thel was leaning back over a sink, trying to keep absolutely still. If there was ever a testament to the absolute foolhardiness of human beings, shaving was it. The Spartan had insisted on doing it for him, so he could see how it was done. And if it weren't for the absolutely irritating "five o'clock shadow" that this was going to get rid of, after the first swipe he would have just pummeled the idiot in his body into a bloody paste and washed him down the drain. The very same idiot was wielding a sharp blade near his neck, moving it slowly and carefully over his face.

He didn't want to accidentally twitch and cause the idiot's blood to be spilled though, because that was just bad form. So instead, he tracked the feeling of the blade across his face, and waited desperately for the torture to be over. He intensely disliked the intimacy of the act that John was committing against him. He had to trust that... that Spartan (though THIS, if anything, was why his people had called him the Demon. It had to be. ) would not hurt him. He tried very hard to set the Spartan on fire with his eyes, but it didn't work.

Finally, the Demon stepped aside and rinsed the blade a final time. He rinsed his face with water, and then the "aftershave" that the Demon pushed at him. After that he rinsed his face with water again, trying to get the smell off. It made his eyes itch.

Why the humans felt the need to put smelly products on themselves like "deodorant" and "aftershave" was beyond him, so far. However, he secretly admitted to himself that after the initial wave of lung-pasting fumes was gone, it wasn't so bad. It reminded him of the scents that were procured from special leaves at home, in order to advertise that one was looking for a mate. Perhaps, the humans were not so backwards at all.

Of course, that led him to wonder if John was looking for a mate. And then, why he would be putting the stuff on Thel, in order to continue looking for a mate, while they were still switched.  
He was forced to conclude that it was probably not an advertisement, and could only hope that the Spartan didn't plan on getting Thel too close to any of the Sangheili who didn't know that the scents weren't for mating. Otherwise, embarrassing things would happen.

He wondered if he should raise this concern with John, and then decided that when they fixed this problem, he could use it as part of his revenge. Yes. Many amusing ways to humiliate the Spartan had crossed the mind of the Sangheili warrior since he'd received the Mark, but he was going to wait long enough that he would have complete satisfaction, and the perfect plan.

The last completely embarrassing incident of the day was evacuating body waste, which was, thankfully, not too different a process between the two species, despite Thel's reservations based on last night's experiences.

John, for one, was unsure if he should feel inferior. If one calculated the proportion of penis to body size, he was pretty sure his penis was smaller than the Arbiter's. It had to be because they let it hang out almost, in their armor. There was only that mesh between delicate sexual organ and air. And perhaps the glassy overshield. But that wasn't to say that he was a lot smaller than the Arbiter, just a little bit. Enough that someone would notice. But of comparable size, even without factoring proportion.

It was going to be one of those things he could think about that would add to his short, detachedly irritated demeanor.

Thel was kind of amazed. From looking at the humans, one would think that they were mostly hairless, like the Sangheili. However, in the shower, he had noticed that that assumption was very wrong. There was the obvious patch of fur on the head, but then it also was on the face, and on their arms, and there was a thin trail leading from the middle of the ribcage down to a thick patch around the sexual organ, and on the legs.

"Is there a place you do not have hair?" he asked, now that he was thinking about it.

"Not really," the Spartan said.

Thel just looked down at the rigidly muscled chest he was trapped behind and sighed. Soft hair was scattered on it, and around those little dark nubs. John said they were nipples, and on females, milk could come from it. That was why the females had oddly shaped chests. He'd made the mistake of dragging his hand over it too hard, and the resulting shock from nerve stimulation was enough to make him glad that at the time, John wasn't looking.

* * *

The mess hall had also been integrated. Thel remembered Rtas Vadum mentioning that it would likely strengthen the alliance to integrate facilities, because then personal relationships could form on top of the formal cease-fire. Evidently, whichever human that was in charge of such things as base configuration agreed.

Thel was impressed at the way they managed to make tables with a Sangheili sized side, and a human sized side. And keep it level. On closer inspection, it was the height of the benches that caused this. The table was tall enough for a Sangheili to fit under, and the human size benches were taller and had an extra bar to put their feet on. The half of the table meant for the Sangheili was painted purple.

They split up to get food from their respective species, and Master Chief got to a table first.  
Thel arrived from the "vending machine" with a "burger". After he'd unwrapped it and was inspecting it slightly, John took it, and removed the green leaf inside. Then he put a red sauce on it in its place, and gave the burger back.

"I don't like lettuce," the Spartan stated flatly. Frowning at him, Thel contemplated how utterly barbaric it was for John to have taken his food. He took the lettuce and ate it anyway. It tasted horrible.

"I told you," the Spartan said. Thel decided to rise to that tiny hint of challenge. He took the prepackaged voyage ration from his adversary's side of the table, opened it, and mixed some of the food together. There. Now he had stolen the Demon's food, and gotten him back. Juvenile as he felt about the whole exchange.

"Thank you," the most infuriating John said, after finishing the food. It was the way Thel liked those particular dishes anyway.

A couple Marines looked at them strangely as they left, but Thel learned that if he stared at them, they found other places to be.

They were in the hall when the most infuriating John looked over at the Arbiter.

"Please don't scare the Marines."

Now that they had been fed and washed, they stood in the hallway, thinking of what to do. Various personnel passed by of either species. Eventually, Thel had spoke up.

"Is there a place where we can research our situation?"

John thought for a few moments. "Perhaps it would be wise to borrow a terminal and use the internet," he suggested. If someone wondered what they were doing, he could always say they were trading information. The old pun on 'networking' crossed his mind, and he shivered. No.

"That is your human communications system, yes? You say it will have a repository of information?"

"That's the general idea."

It took some wandering, but eventually they found their way to a storage area for pocket computer terminals. They were able to check out two computers with little effort, as they were ostensibly going to update the military intelligence on the Sangheili with more accurate of information.

Obviously, the price was accurate information on the humans. But Thel didn't just want to be stranded in this strange pink form with no idea of how it worked.

* * *

Wikipedia. _Wihk-ih-peed-ee-yah_. Apparently, the oldest known repository of information, on anything, ever, related to humans. Thel typed into the search bar, and was confronted with an article, where some of the words were in special font.

"When it's blue and underlined like that, it means that you can go to an article about the word. 'Hand' will go to an article about hands," John pointed to a word, accidentally clicking on the screen. Thel was intrigued, what a convenient way to organize things.

Plhant-ih-grayde. The human foot is_ plant-ih-grayde_. As opposed to_ didg-iht-ih-grayde_. Human words were hard to grasp at times, but at least their scientific naming was straightforward. Plantigrade feet were the same observation that Thel had made earlier in the day, about how the humans had a large surface area on their foot.

Digitigrade came with some frightening pictures of predators native to the planet. Thel was sure he'd be able to take one of the huge lions of the continent he was on, Africa, in his old body. But they traveled in packs, and he was in a human body now. A very strong one, for sure, but he didn't know how to use it effectively, and humans regarded lions as powerful foes. It was a relationship that, if Thel's calculations were correct, had spanned longer than the Covenant with the Sangheili.

He looked over at the empty walls around him. John had his own private quarters, which were small, and to use a human word he'd learned the origin of today, Spartan. He lay on the bed, resting the tired body he was occupying but unable to sleep. Human legends he'd read about on their "Internet" swirled in his mind, and the only conclusion he could come to was confusion.

And so he read on about anatomy. He wondered vaguely how John was doing, since he'd updated their files with as much as he knew. But he was no doctor. He shivered at the thought. But now he kind of wished he had information as specific as this to give John, who didn't know their language, outside of some extremely distasteful words he listed as things he remembered being shouted at him.

His attention was waning from the human scientific texts. The sun was shining on the other side of the planet, and the base was quiet. John would be in Thel's room in the Sangheili quarters. Thel held up one pale hand over his head. So strange, to have five digits on the hand.

The hand was rapidly becoming very familiar to him. He used the other to trace the lines in the palm of the hand, so lightly that it tickled. Humans had little blunt "fingernails" on the ends of their fingers. On other mammals, they adapted to be claws. As for humans the flat deposits of keratin served to protect the ends of their fingers, as well as being good for scratching things. Prying things. Humans were always using little tools, Thel thought.

Especially things that were not meant to be used as tools. He watched, earlier, some Marines try to open a crate, and when it didn't open, they started jamming anything they could find into a small opening, like pens and radio casings, until the top popped off. Sangheili didn't do that. They would have requisitioned a pry bar.

Humans were used to inventing things, Thel reflected. He sighed. It made the Spartan's voice resonate in his ears, the voice he'd been hearing every time he spoke. It was almost infuriating. Almost. There was something in the Spartan's voice that the other humans didn't seem to have, something that sounded familiar. What, Thel didn't know. But it would not be out of place if he heard it coming from one of the other males back on Sanghelios, he was sure of it.

The screen on the little portable computer turned off. At first, he'd thought it was out of battery, but then realized that the screen turned off in order to save battery. Thel turned the little computer all the way off. His thoughts had wandered enough that he was not going to return to the human Internet at this moment.


End file.
